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“Follow the plan outlined here and you can create your own website from scratch without writing any code for less than $300.”
Quora quickly became one of the most popular sites on the web.
After the huge success of Yahoo Answers (and eventual demise), it became clear that people wanted a site where they could get detailed answers to their questions.
So how did Quora succeed when Yahoo Answers failed?
Quora’s secret
Quora focused on a niche rather than all types of questions.
The topics were mainly about business including areas like marketing and entrepreneurship. Over time, the scope has broadened, but this is how they were able to differentiate and draw an engaged audience.
If you want to create a successful Q&A site like Quora, you need to pick a niche. There’s still an opportunity to launch a new question and answer platform if you stand out with a strong brand.
If you’re not sure how to get started, don’t worry. You came to the right place!
In this guide, you’ll discover all the essential components you need to create your own site like Quora. First things first, let’s take a look at how your Q&A site will look.
How much does it cost? Creating a site like Quora using the tools recommended here will cost $154.40 with an annual cost of about $75/year after that.
The site you’ll create
I’m going to recommend a WordPress theme called QAEngine for your Q&A site. Here’s a look at the site you’ll be able to make by using QAEngine and following along with this guide:
While this site looks pretty complex and full-featured, there’s no coding or technical steps required to set it up.
Click here to see more about QAEngine.
How to create a site like Quora
It may seem like a huge project to tackle, but the entire process can be broken down into six basic steps:
- Pick a domain name
- Get hosting
- Install WordPress
- Install QAEngine
- Configure QAEngine
- Launch
Through this guide, you’ll find all the resources you need to complete each step and launch your own site like Quora.
What you need
There are a few products you are going to be using every single day. It will take some time to learn them, but you’ll be a pro with each soon.
Here’s what you need…
WordPress
There’s a reason why WordPress now power over 26% of the web. It’s the world’s most popular CMS by far and this affords you one major advantage: community.
Yup, when you use WordPress, you get access to a huge amount of products and information for creating your site. Not only are there amazing themes like QAEngine for creating sites like Quora, there are also thousands of free plugins for adding new functionality to your site, and there is a wealth of information available online.
No matter what questions you have or what features or design you need for your site, there’s a solution out there, and that’s the true power of WordPress.
Not to mention, it’s free ?
How to setup WordPress
You’ll need a domain name, hosting, and some instructions to install WordPress to get started. I’ve already created a detailed tutorial on this you can follow along with.
Start the WordPress site tutorial now
The best part is that this won’t take you weeks to set up. You can easily get a basic WordPress site live with just a free afternoon.
QAEngine
When using WordPress, you install themes to change the way the site looks. There are also plugins which can be used to add new functionality.
In some cases, it’s easier to get the design and functionality you need from a theme. Otherwise, you can have a hard time integrating different products on your site.
For building a Q&A site, QAEngine works so well because it comes with everything you need.
Design
In terms of design, QAEngine looks awesome. It’s got a modern and clean aesthetic that makes browsing questions easy.
The layout of the theme also effectively focuses visitor attention on the questions. Getting new visitors to ask questions and post replies is the most important aspect of the site, and the design supports this.
Some of the templates like the user profile pages are a little bit cluttered, but there is a lot of interactivity available which is cool.
Features
QAEngine really shines with its huge feature set.
Anyone can register and publish a question. Questions can be browsed by tag or category which makes it easy for visitors to navigate through thousands of answered questions. By default, answers that are selected as “best answers” are moved to the top and highlighted on the page.
There are some awesome monetization options available too. For instance, users can pay to “pump” their question which will raise it to the top of the site for a limited time in order to get more quality responses.
Some more features include:
- User points & badges
- Privileges based on points
- Poll questions
- Users can pick a “best answer”
- Upvoting/downvoting
- Social login
- Live on-site notifications
Those are some of the most exciting features, but there are a few other cool features included in QAEngine.
How to setup QAEngine
The makers of QAEngine, EngineThemes, have detailed documentation for setting up and customizing every aspect of the theme.
The documentation includes detailed tutorials for everything from basic setup to handling user badges and managing members. Following along with these tutorials and the huge amount of instructional WP content available, there’s nothing standing in your way from launching your site.
Alternatives to QAEngine
While QAEngine is an awesome theme, there are a couple good alternatives. Most notable is the Ask Me theme.
Ask Me
Ask Me is a beautiful and modern theme made for Q&A websites like Quora. It has a lot of functionality and the design is highly flexible thanks to layout customization options and custom colors.
Answers
Answers is another solid choice for launching a question and answer website. It has a simple design that makes it great for featuring a large number of user-submitted questions.
You might also like our tutorial for creating a platform like Yahoo Answers if you want to see some alternative designs.
Launch your own site like Quora
With all the tools you need gathered, you can customize your site to your liking. Then you’re prepared to launch and start acquiring your first users.
There is a lot to learn, and it’s not all going to be point-and-click simple, but there aren’t any overly complex or technical hurdles in your way.
With the right approach and dedication, you can quickly publish your own website just like Quora and you can do it all without breaking the bank.
